On the Prowl

pleasure across the wings of my collarbones, up the lifted vulnerable undersides of my arm. Back down.
    “Not fair,” I gasped, that deliberate stroke up and then down tingling my skin. “You distracted me with that kiss.”
    “All’s fair in love and war. Is that not one of your human sayings?” he asked, his breath puffing warmly against my ear as he hunched his big body over my smaller one, pinning my legs down with his great weight. I was surrounded by him, weakened by my desire for him, and not really wanting to escape. Captured, at his mercy. But with that brutally harsh face above me, hard with male excitement and purpose, he didn’t look like he had any mercy. He looked so grim, male, implacable. Almost unrecognizable, like a stranger. And his power vibrated strongly against me with more than just his Monère self; the animal part of him thrummed so strongly there at the surface, so clearly that I could feel it, sense it. As if it was ready to burst out in a wash of fur and fluids with but the lightest touch, the slightest willing. He was clearly channeling the greater strength and hunger of his beast.
    It shivered a feeling of apprehension in me. A feeling almost of fear as I looked up into that hard, hard face, with those inhuman alien eyes gleaming down with hungry harsh intent upon me.
    I stilled, licked my lips, a nervous gesture this time. Swallowed. “You…uh, you’re not going to eat me, are you?”
    “Not yet,” he growled. “My hunger for you is too great for such restraint this first time.”
    “Amber,” I said almost desperately as his head dipped down, as I felt the brush of his lips and the alarming edge of his teeth stroke over the base of my neck where my pulse bounded suddenly like a desperate thing. As he lingered over it, fear and desire pumped my heart equally. A delicious combination, that edge of danger. But only if I knew there truly wasn’t any.
    “Amber,” I said more sharply. He lifted his head, his nostrils flaring, his eyes dilating as he breathed in my feartanged arousal. “I mean as a meal. You don’t see me as food, do you?”
    He shook his head as if coming out of a daze. His eyes still looked cold, inhuman, but his voice, his voice was the Amber I knew and loved, warm with reassurance…and a bit of amusement. “No, love. I want to fuck you. Not eat you.”
    “Oh good.” The tension left my body, leaving an almost painful, sagging relief in its wake.
    His body shook. His breath hitched against my skin as he bent his head once more to my neck. “Amber.” Alarm kicked in once more. Had I hurt his feelings?
    His head remained lowered.
    “Amber, you’re not…crying, are you?”
    “No,” he choked, his breath huffing against me.
    “Look at me.”
    He did. Mirth danced in his eyes, not tears.
    “Beast,” I said succinctly.
    “Don’t worry,” he choked out, “not too much of one.”
    His body shook with the laughter he was trying to suppress. “Don’t be mad, my love.” But his words were ruined by the shaking merriment of his heaving body, and he suddenly lost the battle. A shout of laughter burst out. Then another, and another, until he was fairly howling with it, shaking against me not with lust but with hilarity.
    Oh, the bastard! He was laughing at me!
    My eyes narrowed in a look that would have alarmed him had he seen it. But he was too busy snorting away like a pig to see it.
    Without a whiff of compunction, I brought my knee up, taking advantage of his inattention. Only his quick reflexes saved him. He twisted to the side and my knee struck his muscled thigh instead of his groin. But his grip on my wrists loosened with the maneuver and my hands were suddenly free.
    “You can take your twisted humor and sleep with that,” I snarled, shoving him off me with enough force to tumble him backward onto the ground, and took off.
    The laughter stopped abruptly as he came after me, a dark and silent force. I ran this time with determination, with angry cunning. But still he caught me again, his hands catching my wrist. I turned, slashed at him, my nails leaving bloody red furrows down his forearm, and with a twist, was free once more. I ran south toward the house, toward Belle Vista and the rest of my men.
    “No,” Amber said harshly behind me as he realized my intent. “You are mine tonight.”
    “In your dreams,” I muttered, darting left then right, evading his sudden snatch for me. I put on a burst of speed, but he was even faster.
    He